Intergalactic

A bright flash indicated the spot where the patrol boat had been. The 3D holographic display projected into the center of the control room, between the three desks, marked the spot with a grey sphere for reference. Another one marked the Qyrl ship that had likewise fled into hyperspace. Weapons fire between the remaining six ships and the human battleship lit up the display.

Nico was fiddling with the controls while talking: „Bloom has no offensive weaponry. Nothing in the docking bay has anything worth mentioning. You may call us pirates, but we’re more like pickpockets.“

The other side was eerily calm and organized. No blaring alarms, static or people being tossed about. That was all SciFi movie nonsense. Plus microphones were good enough to pick up only what his conversation partner was saying, and filter out any background noise.

„If they attack us, they might attack you.“, the person on the other end of the line said. Nico hadn’t had time to ask for rank and name.

„Yes, they might.“, he answered, „But there’s nothing I can do about that. This is a space station, not a fortress.“

Two more Qyrl ships flashed out, their emergency warps taking them out of the battle before suffering catastrophic damage. The Aegis Prime was a battleship, and a formidable one. Still, the display also showed it taking a lot of hits.

„Well, better get re -“, the connection went dead. Nico looked up to the holographic display. Another grey sphere had appeared. He exhaled. The battleship had made an escape.

There were four more Qyrl ships remaining. No ships had been destroyed in the short battle, a common result between opponents where both sides had emergency warp capabilities. The pirate outpost had no military sensors or AI, so all he had was guesswork on how much damage the two human ships had sustained, and by his guesses, they would both need months of repairs.

„I don’t think we’ll be able to send out rescue teams.“, he mumbled to himself, looking at the four bright dots on the display. The Qyrl ships would need a minute or two to shut down their dust shields and collect the macrons. Then he would find out why they had come.

„Bad time?“, a deep voice from the door asked. Micah was standing there, just having opened the door. There were no formalities on Bloom and among the hundred or so people running the station, from Nico as the governor down to guards, engineers, supply and logistics clerks and all the rest, there had always been an open-door-and-no-secrets policy.

„Not worse than any other recently.“, Nico said, turning to Micah.

„Right“, the engineers said, stepping into the room, „I think I’ve found something. About that smuggler nest and other stuff.“

While talking, he walked over to Nico and put a map of Binary Bloom on the table, with some scribbling added in green.

„Bloom fills only about half of this old ruin.“, he explained, pointing to the lines and rectangles he had added, „And we add new sections now and then. The rest of this alien husk we explored just enough to make sure there’s no radiation leaks or something about to explode, and that was years and years ago, right?“

Nico slowly nodded. He had an idea where Micah was going with this, but he let him talk.

„Over the years, I’ve noticed occasional energy spikes and weird sensor readings, but hey, Bloom is cobbled together so as long as everything worked fine, I ignored them.“

He grabbed a chair from the next desk and sat down next to Nico, his fingers tracing over the lines he had drawn on the map.

„This is a rough estimate, from memory. But everything directional in those oddities points at roughly the same area. I think we didn’t find the smuggler’s nest. Just their drop-off point where they bring things into the station.“

Nico was still nodding. He looked over the map and tried to find the location of the ventilation shaft and the room they had discovered. There. Indeed, it was close to that side of the unexplored parts of the station.

„All they need is a small landing craft.“, he said, „To ferry things over. A 4D crane to lift them through the walls. Easy. But why?“

„And why shoot at me?“, Micah added, „We don’t do that kind of stuff to each other here. Trick maybe, a fistfight or so, ok. But shoot to kill?“

Nico was lost in thoughts for a moment, then he said: „A mystery worth solving. How long until we have internal communications back?“

„Ricky said a few minutes when I turned back.“

„Right“, Nico gave a slow nod, „Quicker to wait for that than to run after the others. I’ll contact them as soon as it’s up to look for more clues. And I guess we’ll send a team to check around this area“, he pointed to the map where Micah had drawn a few squares to indicate potential locations, „to see what we’ll find there.“